Canuck in California

[catsass]

Hey guys. 

I'm a Canadian guy

who met a California girl, got married and moved down to Redondo Beach a couple of years ago. I'm an actor, writer, director, producer and entrepreneur, in that order. :) I spent my life savings and all the money I made in the outdoor sports industry, trying to make it in the entertainment industry. Now I'm broke.

  Lucky my wife does okay. She keeps me barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen making her nice dinners to come home to.  That is, when I'm not out on an audition, gig, in a writing spree, or working on getting my father's old fishing tackle line back on the market.

Anyway, I've been lurking on here for a while.

My wife and I just picked up a MES 30" smoker used for $30, and a cold smoking kit for $59 delivered. I'm a hardcore hunter, but there isn't much of that available here, so I fish double time. I spearfish a ton and hook & line it the rest of the time. I plan to get a second MES just for fish.

I smoked some pork tenderloins the other night and have 8 more in the brine to do on Tuesday. Tonight I smoked a bunch of cheese. Gouda, Swiss, Asiago, Tillamook Sharp Cheddar, Kerry Gold Dubliner Cheddar and some goat cheese.

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• catsass
• Dec 15, 2014

The cheese was cold smoked in my Masterbuilt smoker unplugged, with smoke coming from the cold smoke generator a few feet away.

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• catsass
• Dec 15, 2014

Also stuck in some filet mignon doused in my secret rub. I cold smoked the beef for two hours and the cheese for three hours at about 66 degrees. While the cheese was finishing up that last hour, I got some coals hot and put them inside the gas grill and covered them with more wood chips so the BBQ filled with smoke while I flashed up the Beef Tenderloin to medium rare. Man were they good.

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• catsass
• Dec 15, 2014

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• catsass
• Dec 15, 2014

Plated with some Jim Beam on the side.

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• catsass
• Dec 15, 2014

The cheese out of the smoker resting. I stuck in ziplock bags left open and they'll sit until tomorrow afternoon before being vacuum packed.

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• catsass
• Dec 15, 2014

 

[noboundaries]

Hey CATSASS, welcome to SMF!  That has to be one of the most impressive first posts I've ever seen.  Glad you're here and well on your way to exercising that new toy.  Obviously you are a "make sweet lemonade out of life" kind of guy no matter what the day throws at you.  Definitely looking forward to seeing you around the forum with what you create in the MES since you obviously have so much free time when not acting, writing, directing, producing, fishing, spearfishing, entrepren......making a new business, cooking, and now smoking.

Keep having fun!

Ray

 

[biggqwesty]

X2 with above. Very impressive start.
I'd be sending a cv to the producers of the MES and a few picks of the goodies. Never know youight be the next mes advertising face lol.
Anyway keep it coming and happy smoking

 

[gary s]

  Good morning and welcome to the forum, from a nice, sunny day here in East Texas. Lots of great people with tons of information on just about  everything.

Gary 

 

[themule69]

Glad you joined the group. The search bar at the top of any page is your best friend.
About anything you wanna know about smoking/grilling/curing/brining/cutting or slicing
and the list goes on has probably been posted. Remember to post a QVIEW of your smokes.
We are all smoke junkies here and we have to get our fix. If you have questions
Post it and you will probably get 10 replies with 11 different answers. That is
because their are so many different ways to make great Q...

Nice score on the MES.
Happy smoken.
David

 

[catsass]

Thanks guys.  Been using the search bar quite a bit the last couple of weeks. My wife and I moved into a rented house here in Redondo Beach and now that we have a little yard, we were finally able to get a BBQ .  It didn't take long before I convinced her we needed a smoker. I have done a tiny bit of smoking when I was younger, but was spoiled since my best friend Al is a butcher and owns his own shop. He would smoke all the stuff I ever needed and more. On Christmas eve he would be smoking turkeys so all his buddies could take hot turkeys fresh out of the smoker for turkey dinner. His shop is in Winnipeg called EastEnd Meats & Sausage.

I hope you guys don't mind me plugging his store. https://www.facebook.com/eastendmeatsandsausage

He's too busy for social media, but I set up a FB page and did a little video for him when I visited about a month ago. Poor guy and his wife work 7 days a week for the last several years.

Of course as a Canadian, we BBQ are year long. There could be four feet of snow on my deck but always a path shoveled to the BBQ from the back garden doors. If it was too unbearable, the BBQ would get hauled into the attached garage.  It was torture moving to California in an apartment where BBQs are not allowed. No one seems to let you do any Q in apartments here, even with a balcony. I'm in finally in my glory again.

I learned a lot from all the good people who shared their knowledge here. I also called my buddy Al several times for advice.

I have never cold smoked in my life but I love to cook and Q. I have been talking to him about doing a video series together, showing people how to make a variety of sausages, smoked meats, jerkies, make their own smokers, etc. Al has recipes he developed over 40 years of being in the business too. We'll see how it works out. He is a little overwhelmed with his new store right now (moved from Anola, Manitoba a few years ago and built the new store). It's small but he reckons he has sold over 270,000 rings of garlic sausage in three years.

My dad's old brand for anyone who's interested, is CATSAS-S[emoji]174[/emoji] Fishing Lures. In the 60's he patented a line of lure that allowed you to put your bait inside. He was forced off the market by the big guys and I want to bring them back. There was no internet or social media back then, so it was much harder to get the word out and much easier for big corps with cash to keep you off the market or sabotage your efforts. I'm in the design phase, but hope to have the vintage line out in early spring and then some new designs of my own out shortly after. Just trying to figure out the money thing. Did the trademarks and the CAD drawings and working on the cash to produce the first order. Plan to make them here in California.  I was always passionate about the lures, and planned to bring them out in 2006, but right when I was ready to launch, he passed away and I was floored. I want to people to remember my dad and his contributions to the fishing industry.  He's a legend back home. Many of his designs from the 50's and 60's are the mainstay of fishing today.

https://www.facebook.com/catsassfishinglures

http://catsassfishinglures.com/

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• catsass
• Dec 15, 2014

Me and my cousin in about 1973 with my dad's old CATSAS-S[emoji]174[/emoji] station wagon.

We used to travel with him on the road every summer. Here's the CATSAS-S[emoji]174[/emoji] bus that came after, with my younger brother and my step mom. My brother won the fishing contest. Grrr...

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• catsass
• Dec 15, 2014

Me an my Pa. I'm wearing one of the CATSAS-S[emoji]174[/emoji] hats that were very popular back in the day. Having something with the word ASS on it was controversial back then. But it was actually an acronym my dad thought up in church one day. It stands for Color, Action, Taste, Sound, and Smell Systems. :)

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• catsass
• Dec 15, 2014

Cleaning fish on the back of the bus somewhere in Ontario.

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• catsass
• Dec 15, 2014

Anyway, dreams, dreams. :)

Tomorrow I'll be cold smoking nova lox, and Wednesday I'll be doing a 8 pork tenderloins. They have become my favorite.